


smoking break

by poloniumsis



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Barista Jungwoo, I'll add tags later, M/M, Smoking, a bit OOC, basketball player lucas, computer science student lucas, engineering student jungwoo, international student lucas, lapslock, other members and idols mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27998583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poloniumsis/pseuds/poloniumsis
Summary: lucas is an international student struggling to keep up with his studies and constantly forgetting his lighter. jungwoo is always there to lend him one.
Relationships: Kim Jungwoo/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first ever work in english, so... please be understanding. i'm also not quite sure about the exact plot lines, so i will probably tag things as i go.  
> warning: this work features both lucas and jungwoo smoking. if you're not okay with that, please leave.

‘i do not understand’, he said to himself. after spending the whole day in front of the computer screen, he could no longer think, read or concentrate. this task was supposed to be easy, just a simple programme to start their course. lucas had thought the entire thing would be easy - after all, it was called an ‘intro to coding’. that was until they actually got started with the classes. a month in - it was already a disaster. 

the language barrier was not helping either. it’s one thing to have trouble in class because you’re a beginner. it’s another thing to not understand half of the stuff that is said or written. the task requirements for the homework he’s doing at the moment? had to google at least a third of the words (another third he guessed from context). 

moving to korea to study would be hard - he knew that. and his parents made sure to tell him that a bunch of times. but he really didn’t want to stay home. he didn’t know why - his relationship with his family was fine, he had a bunch of friends at school, everything was... normal? but he just felt like he had to leave. he just had to. it was an urge he couldn’t neither explain nor fight.

so for the last two years of high school he worked his ass off to get a scholarship. he had a reputation of a dumb-ish fuckboy, which generally didn’t bother him, but it wasn’t of any help when he started studying hard. he wasn’t bullied for it, of course, but he often felt as if his efforts were dismissed because of the impression most people had of him. his natural goofiness and clumsiness were also not particularly helpful in establishing a new scholarly persona. 

he had to search every nook and cranny of the internet to find a school that would accept him, a place that would fund his studies. besides, the computer science field is so saturated and competitive these days, moving started to seem impossible, no matter what scores he got, it still wasn’t enough.

he ended up getting a sports-based scholarship, which was kinda ironic considering he only thought of sports as a way to relieve stress. signing the contract, he felt like a fraud - at that point he’d been smoking for almost six months, which he knew was ultimately bad... but it was a thing that helped him cope. it wasn’t even the nicotine itself - at least he didn’t think it was, - it was more about the habit of having something to do. having a calming ritual. 

he tried to quit once, but eventually came back to it. ‘maybe it’s an actual addiction’, he thought, while buying a new pack of parliament. but he decided not to think about it - ‘at least, not now’. that ‘now’ was about eight months ago and he’s been smoking on and off since. sometimes he’d run out of money from his part-time job at the supermarket. sometimes he’d feel too guilty about doing it. serious thoughts about quitting overwhelmed him, so he avoided that topic. (he only had himself to avoid it with, though - his parents and basketball coach didn’t know, his little brother and his friends didn’t really care.)

and here he was, on a sports scholarship. he got into a computer science program. the school he got into wasn’t exactly the most prestigious one, but it was fine - he wouldn’t want to put all that pressure of an elite university on himself.

it’s been a month in korea and he still was struggling. not that he expected for it to be all sunshine and rainbows, but it was... underwhelming? moving felt like an opportunity to forget about all of his problems, to have a new start. however, it turned out that you can’t really run away from your problems when they are in your head.

and so there he was, sitting in his dorm room with his laptop. his roommate wasn’t there yet. to be honest, he rarely ever was there, which, on the one hand, was nice, because nobody bothered lucas. on the other hand, though, sometimes he wanted to be bothered. his roommate - his name was johnny suh, by the way, - was one of the few people lucas knew on campus. besides, he spoke english, which made the communication much easier. however, johnny was a couple years older and already had an established friend group, which yukhei felt hesitant to intrude. 

he has now been stuck with the same problem for about an hour. maybe it wasn’t even that complicated, but it was still really, REALLY discouraging because once he thought he finally got something right, something else would stop working.

‘oh, c’mon!’, he said when another error report appeared on the screen. he pressed ctrl+s, closed his laptop and plopped down on the bed with a loud sigh. he looked at his phone to check the time - it was only eight pm, but he was exhausted and his back hurt like a bitch because of all the sitting and slouching.

suddenly, he heard the door open. a moment later, someone turned on the lights in the room - it has only now occured to lucas that he’d been sitting in the dark all that time. well, actually, now that he thinks about it, it was light out when he sat down to do his homework, but several hours had passed since then. he turned his head to the door to see who it was and, to nobody’s surprise, it was johnny.

his roommate was wearing a nice sweater over a white shirt. he had a bright smile on his face, which made him look even more handsome than he already was. did he just come back from a date? ‘hi’, he said, and yukhei said hi back. 

‘you don’t look so great’, johnny said. lucas would usually answer that with some witty comment, but he had no energy to and suh quickly noticed that. ‘i see your homework isn’t treating you nicely, huh?’

yukhei nodded. he picked his phone back up - there was a new notification. it was his mum asking how things were. what could he tell her? he didn’t have the heart to say ‘oh, my classes suck and i have no friends because my korean is terrible, and also i’ve been smoking like a chimney’. so he put his phone down. 

johnny looked at him weird, almost like he cared. ‘wanna go play basketball? i’m going with some of my friends’, he offered.  
lucas thought about the possibility of it. playing could be good now, maybe he would relax. the training sessions with his university team were very tiring, yet they barely did anything for him mentally. actually, he felt even more pressure - pressure to be good, to be a diligent player, to be dedicated. but it’s really hard when you’re struggling with so much shit at the same time.

the guys on the team were nice and understanding. but even they would sometimes lose their patience with him, especially when he needed things re-explained because of the language barrier. yukhei didn’t blame them. he hoped he would find great friends there, but even though everyone was quite welcoming, he just felt really out of place and didn’t communicate with his teammates outside of practice. it seemed that he was the root of all his problems.

so after a couple seconds of thought, he said: ‘sure, if they wouldn’t mind’.

‘get ready then, we need to leave in twenty minutes’, johnny seemed satisfied with himself. for some reason he felt this sense of responsibility for lucas. maybe suh saw himself in him - tall, goofy, just moved, a little lost, struggling with korean. 

they got ready and left for the gym. it was april and the weather, especially in the evening, was still chilly, so they played inside.

that was the first time lucas met johnny’s friends. there were four people: yuta and taeyong, who were in the same year with johnny, jaehyun, a couple years younger than them and mark, a freshman. wong actually recognised the latter - they were in the same math class. 

‘weird’, lucas thought to himself, ‘why would johnny be close with a first-year student?’. he stopped caring about it, though, once they started playing. he was quite a bit better than everyone else (which made him happy - not because he had some sort of superiority complex, but because it made him finally feel that his scholarship was deserved), so he had to tone it down a little. johnny’s height was definitely an advantage, but yuta and jaehyun made it fair with their efforts. taeyong, on the other hand, was not so great, and mark looked apologetic scoring on him. (he later found out that taeyong doesn’t really play basketball, but since johnny invited lucas, they needed an extra player to make it fair - they played in teams of three - and no one else except taeyong could make it.)

for the first time in a while, yukhei felt at ease. they went to grab some mcdonald’s after the game and had a nice chat with johnny on the way home. why was he so hesitant to meet his friends? they’re all in the same boat, after all - especially considering that most of them were international students.

basketball didn’t quite solve his coding troubles, but it for sure gave him some energy to keep at it. he fixed the problem in the morning, finally having found the solution on stackoverflow - and never in his life has he felt more proud. not when he graduated, not when he got a scholarship, not when he went a month without smoking sometime last year - no. for today finishing this stupid python homework was his biggest life achievement.


	2. Chapter 2

he woke up very suddenly and right away he knew - something was wrong. he looked at the time on his phone and oh shit! he was about to be late for class. so he jumped off the bed, put on some clothes, shoved his laptop into his bag and rushed to the door, almost forgetting to put shoes on before leaving.

he tried to fix his sleep-matted hair on the way to class (thank god the building he needed was one of the closest to his dorm) and stormed in right before the professor closed the door. it was math class - one of his least favourite ones. he noticed mark, but all the seats around him were already taken, so lucas sat down at a random spot in the second row.

generally speaking, he didn’t despise math. however, he was never excellent at it and he had to study very (very very) hard to get good scores. but with a new layer of struggle - that is, understanding the korean language, - added, it became nearly impossible to keep up. wong tried his best, but it still didn’t quite work for him.

and so the class began. it was still all matrixes at that point and it required a lot of counting. it’s not the easiest thing to follow along anyway, but having woken up like five minutes ago and being hungry as hell really didn’t help the learning process.

so when the class was finally over, lucas was one of the first people to rush out of the classroom. he had another class in ten minutes and it was at least a six minute walk there, so there was no chance of grabbing a snack. but there was a great chance to smoke. so he exited the building and found one of the students’ regular smoking spots. he reached into his bag to find his pack of raison and a lighter... a lighter... it wasn’t in the pack, where he’d usually put it, and he couldn’t find it, although he’d searched his whole bag for it.

‘shit!’, he whispered to himself, trying to remember where his lighter could be. he probably left it in his jacket, which he realised he didn’t actually put on before leaving. so now not only did he have no lighter, but he was also cold because of the windy spring weather. 

while lucas was trying to count all of the day’s misfortunes, a slender figure appeared next to him. he looked up from his bag and saw a boy. a really pretty boy, it must be noted. he had light brown hair and was wearing a nice coat over his warm turtleneck. without a word, the boy handed him a lighter - it was black, with a cute dog sticker on the side. 

in a bit of shock, lucas accepted it. it looked so weirdly small and adorable in his huge palm, he couldn’t get over it for a couple of moments. finally, he realised that he’s probably acting really weird, so he tried to snap out of it, then put a cigarette between his lips and lit it up as fast as he could. his hands were shaking a little bit, and the coat prince (that’s a nickname wong immediately made up for him) giggled quietly. it wasn’t mean though - yukhei didn’t know why, buy it didn’t feel condescending or evil. honestly, nothing about that boy could ever be bad or negative, he had such a warm and cute vibe.

‘thank you’, lucas said after taking his first drag and gave the lighter back to coat prince. 

‘you’re welcome’, he replied, putting it away into his tote bag, smiling sweetly. wong could not keep his eyes off the other boy and all of the words he’d ever known suddenly got stuck in his throat. once he almost gathered up enough courage to ask the stranger for his name, the prince looked at his watch.

‘sorry, i really have to go... and you probably should too!’, he said. his voice was so soft, it took yukhei a couple of moments to realise what happened. he looked at his phone - at for the second time in that day, he was about to be late for class. so he took two last rushed drags, threw away what was left of his cigarette and practically ran to his last class, wind messing up his hair even more than it already was.

-

the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. he got his code reviewed, which he was not happy about. it’s not that he didn’t want to improve, it’s just that accepting any kind of criticism after having spent such a long time on something was... hard, to say the least. especially when some of the commentary is: ‘well, the name of this variable isn’t quite informative’. 

he barely managed to stay calm and take it. he got calmer when he finally got to eat after his second class though. each lecture was an hour and a half long, so that was a real challenge considering he still was in his ‘growing boy’ phase. what also got him through it was the image of the coat prince from earlier. there was something so... unusual, so nice about him, but lucas couldn’t put his finger on it.

he also had basketball practice that day. it was fine, but yukhei wished he was playing with johnny and his friends instead. for the time being, he really had to make it work though because his scholarship depended on his performance. 

so when bobby, the team captain, asked him if he wanted to go to the party that weekend, he confidently said yes. it was a chance to get to know everyone a bit better - or, at least, get a feel of what college life’s supposed to be like. 

back at the dorm room, he found his lighter in the pocket of his jacket - he couldn’t quite remember why he left it there though. but he made sure to put it back into the small white and blue pack. he must’ve been smiling the whole evening because eventually johnny asked if something had happened.

‘ughhh... no? not really. just met someone’, the boy said, opening up the laptop to make the review corrections.

‘must be someone nice, huh?’, his roommate raised a brow.


	3. Chapter 3

the weekend creeped up quickly. lucas wasn’t really excited for the party though. instead, he was stressed about his homework. he was making the same mistake of assuming everything would magically work out for him over and over again. the thing is, it didn’t. 

so when he finally sat down to do the coding task in the friday afternoon, it became very clear that he might have to miss the outing. ‘how the fuck is this even supposed to work?!’, he was thinking while reading the instructions to the new lab they were assigned. who needs a python sudoku solver in 2020? (obviously, it’s just a thing to teach them about the language, but the question still stands.) the only thing yukhei knew about sudoku was that his grandma liked solving it when she had some spare time - he suddenly vividly remembered her sitting in the kitchen with a thick paperback book of squares ready to be filled with numbers from one to nine. 

when he was a child, everything seemed so much easier. he wanted to grow up so badly! and then he wanted to graduate from middle school. and then he couldn’t wait for college. what now though? where did all that enthusiasm go? sometimes he felt like actually studying was never the goal - it was only the fact of getting into a university that mattered.

he looked at the assignment once again. he’d written the two first functions, and the rest didn’t look terrible, but he needed to google a ton of stuff. and he didn’t want to google anything. to be completely honest, if anything, he wanted to smoke. and so he did - he picked up his laptop and his bag, put on his jacket (at least that mistake he can fix) and was out the door.

he ran fast down the stairs, getting the lighter and a cigarette out. he put the latter behind his ear and pressed the dorm card against the electronic reader at the exit. only when he stepped out on the street did he think about what he was actually going to do.

wong figured it was going to be a long day if he wanted to get the task finished in time - and he desperately needed to because otherwise he’d lose points. and then he’d have to take an exam, which would definitely include a lot of talking. with his limited korean skills that sounded like a one-way ticket back home (or at least to failed class town).

so he lit up the cigarette, made a couple of drags and came up with somewhat of a plan that really only consisted of two steps. one: go to the coffee shop not far from campus. two: treat himself to an extra large americano and use it as motivation to continue working on the code. he went in long strides - his height and playing basketball made him a fast walker, - and got to the coffee shop quite quickly, barely having finished smoking. he threw the cig butt away into the nearest bin and opened the cafe door.

the wind chimes rang. lucas looked in the general direction of the cashier’s stand and was immediately stunned. the barista looked up at him - it was the coat prince. he was wearing a navy blue sweater and a branded apron, which accentuated his slim waist. yukhei walked up to the stand almost knocking over a chair that was in his way - he just couldn’t take his eyes off the other boy.

‘good evening! what can i make for you today?’, the barista asked. wong looked at him silently for a couple of seconds. prince’s name tag said ‘jungwoo’, he noticed. finally, the sense of reality came back to him, and he immediately felt embarrassed, a soft pink shade dusting his cheeks.

‘a large americano, please’, he managed to squeeze out of his throat. because of the nervousness his accent was worse than usual and so he got even more awkward - but jungwoo didn’t seem to notice, still smiling at him softly.

‘hot or iced?’, he tried to specify.

‘ughmmm... hot, please’, wong replied. why was speaking so hard all of the sudden? he paid for his drink, trying to smile through the embarrassment, and sat down at a small table in the corner. yukhei took out his laptop, the window of unfinished work in the ide giving him a look of disapproval as soon as the screen lit up. but he really needed something else to put his eyes on - it would probably be super creepy if he continued to stare at the coat prince.

in a couple of minutes, the barista came around with lucas’s drink. it was a huge (and by that i mean huge!!) pink mug of hot black coffee, the amazing smell encompassing every cubic centimeter of air around the tiny table. he looked up and was met with the same cute and warm smile - does jungwoo smile like that at everyone? how is it possible to be this... soft??

while the computer science student contemplated those extremely important questions, his eyes followed the prince walk back to his work station and take another order from a girl that had just come in. wong really tried not to feel offended at how the other boy seemed to be so comfortable and almost flirty around her - but he quickly reminded himself that the barista didn’t owe him anything. they obviously weren’t dating. hell, they weren’t even acquaintances!

so he decided it would be best to get back to his work. the sudoku solver wasn’t going to wait for him as patiently as jungwoo did. 

-

testing was a real bitch in general, but with matrices especially. even the large amount of caffeine he had consumed couldn’t help when he got to the final function - it was supposed to generate a solvable playing field. so yukhei thought it was probably time to go home - and he couldn’t help but quietly shriek when he looked at the time. it was almost ten o’clock in the evening! he’s been here for around six hours - and now that he looked at the room, it was empty except for him.

the coat prince was putting the leftover pastries into a takeaway box. he’d already taken his apron off - lucas figured he was supposed to close the shop soon, so he got ready to leave.

‘please don’t rush!’, he heard from across the room, ‘you can stay if you want to, we work twenty four hours a day. another barista will come in soon’, jungwoo smiled at him again. wong felt something in his stomach turn - was it feelings? no, it couldn’t be. he’s probably just hungry. 

‘uhm, thanks... i have to go’, he replied. again, flustered. what is it with him today? definitely should have eaten more. yukhei zipped up his jacket and proceeded to the door. 

he looked around - the sky was dark and cloudy, there was nobody else on the street. he was taking a cigarette out of the pack when the door opened once again, revealing jungwoo’s figure in the same nice coat from a couple days ago. the com sci major’s hands started shaking as he was pulling the lighter out of the cardboard - yep, definitely hadn’t eaten enough.

suddenly, his fingers didn’t feel like his own. he fumbled with the thing a bit more, but it slipped from his large palms and fell right into the sewer drain. ‘fuck!’, he whispered, angry for making a fool of himself in front of the other boy for god knows what time.

‘you’re just like my friend’, the barista giggled. wong immediately noticed how cute that small laugh was. honestly, did the guy have any imperfections? ‘here’, jungwoo said, handing him the lighter, the same black one with the puppy sticker, while lucas was still staring down at the metal railing in despair.

‘thanks’, he mumbled. in a familiar motion, he stroked the wheel a few times, putting the cigarette between his lips, then giving the lighter back. ‘is your...’, he wanted to say ‘shift’, but he couldn’t remember the word. ‘...uhmm, are you... done?’ - whenever he thought that python is the language he’s worst at, life reminded him of his poor korean skills. he wasn’t actually that terrible, but nervousness made him forget any vocabulary he’d learned in class.

but the coat prince seemed to not notice his struggle. he waited patiently for him to finish his words, with a soft look in his eyes. ‘is your work finished?’, lucas managed to clarify, and the other boy nodded.

‘should we walk to the dorm together then?’, he asked after a couple of seconds spent gathering all of the grammar that was scattered around his brain. ‘it’s late’, he added, in an attempt to not sound too pushy.

‘that would be great, but the night shift guy is late. he isn’t responding to my texts, so i don’t know when he’ll get here. i can’t just leave the cafe unsupervised’, the barista replied with an apologetic look on his face. wong thought it was unfair how naturally cute some people are.

he was done smoking. what was he supposed to do now, leave? should he offer to wait? or would it be weird, they technically haven’t even introduced themselves yet.

‘i have to go clean. bye, have a nice night!’, again, jungwoo had moved on from the situation while yukhei was staring blankly into space, puzzled.

‘bye!’, he managed to answer before the barista went back inside. in what seemed like a few seconds, he got to his dorm room. his head full - not with any coding ideas, though, but with thoughts about the coat prince.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays everyone!  
> just to you know, i wrote this instead of doing the coding homework that i don’t understand. sorry for not updating in so long, i’m still struggling with school (as you can probably tell from the previous sentence). :(

and then all of the sudden, it was saturday. he woke up because johnny shut the bathroom door way too loudly, which is not the way you want to be woken up by at eight am on a saturday morning. why was his roommate up so early anyway?

lucas had basketball practice in a couple of hours and, ideally, he’d better cram in some coding. but he was so annoyed with his work that he didn’t even want to think about it, so he decided to think about suh’s weird behaviour instead. seriously, why was he up so early? the boy tried to remember if the older had talked of any chores, or appointments, or anything... but nothing came to mind. then, wong tried to recall the previous evening. he came home quite late - was johnny even here?

no. no he wasn’t - it was completely dark in the room, when lucas came in, so he absent-mindedly turned on the light, but there was no reaction. if his roommate was there, he would’ve definitely said something... only now did the boy realise, suh wasn’t there at all, when he returned from the coffeeshop. 

so, does that mean that he only came home... now? but why?.. lucas’ trail of thought was interrupted by the sound of a door opening - johnny was finished showering.

‘oh, did i wake you up? sorry, i didn’t mean to slam the door like that, it... ours is kinda weird, you know?’, suh mumbled, drying his hair with a blue towel, ‘... maybe we should get it fixed sometime’.

‘mhm’, lucas nodded, eyes wide - he didn’t really know why it surprised him so much that johnny slept over at somebody else’s place. actually, he hadn’t ever thought of such a possibility before. but now he was a bit mad at himself for being so weird about it (even though he hadn’t mentioned anything to suh yet) - they’re both adults, why wouldn’t they have people to hang out with overnight? maybe he was at a friend’s house.

so, to stop thinking of his roommates possible night encounters, he got up and washed his face. his stomach was growling with hunger - he definitely needed to eat before heading to practice, and the sooner he did, the better. 

so he carried on with his day, trying not to worry about the programming homework that was left unfinished.

-

basketball practice was exhausting. even the warm up was quite tiring - well, the coach was probably right in making them do it all properly and stuff. but it was still a pain in the ass, sometimes, quite literally, because after a while everything would start to hurt. when they’d finally started playing, lucas tried to keep as involved as possible - otherwise, the thoughts about the homework would slide right into his head. and, besides, if you are not paying attention, you’re just asking to get injured.

at saturday practice, there were two kinds of people: the ones who tried to be super active and then the ones who looked like they woke up five minutes ago and really didn’t wanna be there. yukhei could really relate to both. but he just couldn’t let himself relax and be lazy at practice. still, he’d feel like an imposter half the time, studying in korea on this sports scholarship. so, to prove himself worthy, he’d always try hard, even if he didn’t feel like doing anything that day.

when they were finished, the team proceeded to the locker room. ‘is everyone coming to the party tonight?’, the captain asked, putting on his red hoodie. bobby was not particularly tall or muscular, but he played super well. thinking about it, he made a pretty good captain - wong noticed, he always managed to lighten up the mood. 

most of the people replied something along the lines of ‘yeah’ and ‘sure’, and not lucas felt like he definitely couldn’t miss this opportunity. when else will he meet new people? he doesn’t have any new ideas for the homework anyway.

‘see ya at ten, the address will be in the groupchat!’, bobby yelled, walking out the locker room door.

-

‘any plans for the night?’, johnny asked, when lucas got to the dorm.

‘ughh, i think i’m going to a party? the team captain invited me’, wong told him, putting his dirty uniform away into the laundry basket. 

‘oh, so you’re coming too! we’ll go together, then, my buddy lives in the same apartment block as bobby... they invited me yesterday.’ 

great, so he won’t be alone - was the boy’s first thought. and the second was: what buddy is that? is it who he stayed with last night? yukhei really couldn’t explain why he was so intrigued by this whole situation. his roommate really didn’t owe him an explanation and, maybe, they weren’t close enough to disclose the details of their love life. lucas would still probably tell suh if he had something going on though... but maybe that’s just because he hadn’t made any closer friends here.

‘what should i wear?’, he asked. he was unsure of what an appropriate look would be. he went to some parties back home in hong kong, but he still didn’t have that much experience. besides, those were not particularly big - more like drinking get-togethers with school friends who he saw at least once a week anyway.

‘anything you like?’, his roommate’s response was. it was logical, of course, but not particularly helpful.

so lucas started looking through their shared closet and dresser. he had brought quite a lot of stuff, but some of it seemed too casual. and the rest too boring. finally, he picked out a nice navy pullover and a white t-shirt to go underneath it - doesn’t scream ‘fun!’, of course, but it had to do.

when he looked at the clock, it was still only half past four. he had plenty of time, and laptop was sitting right there - he couldn’t avoid its shameful glare. when he settled at his desk, he noticed a new notification on his phone.

it was a text from mum: ‘how’s the school? are you eating well? you need food to play basketball!’. at least one of the things she asked about (the eating) was going alright, so he replied right away. when she asked about stuff that wasn’t going so great, he would wait for a while before saying anything. it was hard to lie to her, but he also didn’t want her to worry - she also probably has her own problems to deal with.

-

they got to the apartment complex fast - johnny knew exactly how to get there. they actually even grabbed coffee on their way - lucas was almost dead from the practice and then the attempts of fixing his code. he still couldn’t get one of the unittests to pass and he didn’t know what to do about it. it felt like he had searched through the whole wide internet, and still nothing turned up. maybe he should’ve stayed home afterall. 

when they opened the door, a strong wave of sound came over them. not only was the music loud, but there were a lot of people - walking, dancing, chatting, making noise. they were quickly greeted by bobby, who happened to be by the entrance, and pointed them in the direction of the kitchen.

suh grabbed them two beers from the fridge. while they were looking around, a man suddenly approached them. he was quite a bit shorter and looked very elegant. he had black hair and was wearing a beautiful silky shirt. ‘hi’, the stranger smiled. johnny immediately said ‘hi’ back - so, maybe it wasn’t a complete stranger. and so wong said 'hello' to the guy too.

‘that’s ten, i’ve told you about him - he lives in this building. and that’s lucas, my roommate. he’s a freshman’, johnny made sure to introduce them to each other. 

‘oh, nice to meet you, lucas. you’re a foreigner too, right?’, ten turned to him, looking like he was trying his best to be friendly. wong noticed, he had a lot of piercings in his ears - they suited him well.

‘yeah! i’m from hong kong’, he replied, eager - that’s the first new acquaintance for today, then quickly added: ‘nice to meet you too’. suddenly, yukhei realised that suh had shifted from his old position and was now standing closer to ten, putting an arm around his waist. ‘is that his sleepover buddy?’ - the boy thought to himself. ‘well, that is none of my business anyway’, he decided, and put on an even bigger smile than before. he really wanted to make a good impression.

‘have you just moved here?’, ten asked.

‘yup... i’ve been here for a little over a month,’ wong told him. does johnny know every single foreign student on campus? 

‘oh, i see... your korean is quite good then! it’s a bit tough now, but it gets better, just so you know’, the other guy smiled, this time more genuinely. for some reason, lucas felt a parent-like presence.

after a couple of beers, some dancing and a round of playing cards with johnny, ten and other people, it was already almost one am. not particularly late, perse, - but everything went smoother, than lucas had expected. he wasn’t feeling as anxious or weird as when he first got to the apartment (which, to his surprise, was quite big - it turned out, bobby’s two roommates, who he was renting with, went to visit their families for the weekend, so the place was all his for the night).

so when he finally found his jacket on the hanger (which at that point was barely standing from all the weight that was put on it) and went to the balcony to smoke, his newly attained confidence suddenly vanished.

tsome people were standing there already, and one of them... well, you guessed it - it was the coat prince.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this while drunk, so please excuse any grammar mistakes/typos, ily  
> another fun fact: most of the electronic stuff will be banned and/or out of stock before the end of january, so... time to quit? lmao

life must have a sense of humour. otherwise, why would everything in lucas’ life work out this way? the only explanation is: life is a sarcastic bitch who has nothing better to do than watch him struggle and suffer.

just as he went through the balcony doors, he found a painfully familiar figure in the crowd. it’s not that he wasn’t happy to see jungwoo - it’s just that every conversation felt incredibly awkward, which is especially bad, considering how many weird and embarrassing talks he had since moving to korea barely knowing the language.

to be completely honest, he was hoping to see the barista again. wanted to see him - but hated to even think about talking because that requires thought, reactions, responses - but how do you come up with any topic for discussion, or even just a sentence, when you don’t really know each other or have anything in common? and, more importantly: how does one process their surroundings, when there’s the world’s most beautiful and charming person standing so close?

you see, besides thinking about johnny’s midnight encounters and his unsuccessful coding, he made room for a new kind of anxious thought: contemplating if he by any chance liked jungwoo. despite the hardships of being a foreign student, he had never yet felt this way around a person. it was like he got ten times clumsier and more clueless when he met the guy - and that’s considering they’ve only met twice before. what made him come to that conclusion was also the way something fluttered inside him when he saw the other boy - yukhei just couldn’t get over how cute he was. 

so, when wong saw the coat prince, his first instinct was to turn around and run. but he hasn’t smoked all day and that was no fun - not that he had any particular physical symptoms, it’s just that the thought of it had been circling his head for way too long already - he had to stay.

he pulled out the cardboard pack out of his pocket in a habitual motion, opened it and put a cigarette between his lips. he looked down, trying to find the lighter, but there wasn’t one in the pack. so he started to search through his pockets, trying to remember where he could’ve possibly put it and, just like that, he realised he had dropped it down the sewer the night before.

frustrated, he looked up, just in time to catch jungwoo’s soft gaze. ‘hi’, he said, almost unconsciously. well, there’s no way back now, huh?

‘hi’, the other boy said, making his way through the people on the balcony to get closer to lucas. ‘need a lighter?’, he laughed, pulling out the same puppy sticker one from his pocket, which the freshman happily accepted. 

‘thanks’, he made a couple of drags, - finally, the burden of not smoking all day had left his mind. he got distracted by people around - someone was leaving, someone had bumped into him on their way in, the balcony was just as packed and loud as the rest of the apartment. when yukhei’s eyes finally got back to the coat prince, he noticed: the boy was smoking too.

of course, why else would he be here in the first place? to enjoy the view? he wasn’t smoking regular cigs though - it was one of those disposable electronic ones. it smelled fresh and sweet - nothing like the overwhelming, heavy smell of tobacco. it suited the other well.

‘wait... if you smoke electronic, why do you have a lighter?’, again, the words made their way out of his mouth before he realised what exactly he was saying.

jungwoo giggled quietly at the question - if it was anybody else, lucas would assume they were being mean. but he could never think that of the coat prince. ‘i carry it around for my friend’, the barista nodded in the direction of a girl standing by the metal railing of the balcony, who had dark curly hair and was wearing a leather jacket. ‘soojin always forgets or loses hers, and then we can’t smoke together. so i keep one in my pocket just in case’, he explained.

‘oh... that’s nice of you’ - was all wong could reply. he immediately regretted it (all of his answers sounded dumb to him, no matter what he had actually said), and they smoked in silence for a little while, which was calming.

‘what’s your name, by the way?’, the boy asked.

‘i’m lucas!’, the freshman replied enthusiastically. that one he can’t screw up, right? 

‘my name’s kim jungwoo’, the other introduced himself. yukhei almost said ‘i know’, but managed to hold back at the last moment. it would be weird if he did say that. what is he? a stalker? he didn’t wanna seem any worse than he already probably did. coat prince continued: ‘i study engineering, i’m a sophomore. it’s your first year here, right? what’s your major?’

‘that’s right,’ - is it that obvious? well, it must be. it isn’t a bad thing though, is it? everyone is a freshman at some point, aren’t they? wong’s head was all of the sudden cluttered with thoughts. ‘i’m in the computer science department’.

so, their majors are kinda similar. not really, they are still different things, but it’s at least something? to be honest, lucas was looking for something they would have in common to... hold on to? he didn’t know anything about the other boy, so any piece of information was helpful. why did that concern him so much? he didn’t know quite yet, but he strongly felt the need to grow closer to the older. 

suddenly, a smaller figure appeared next to them - it was soojin. she linked her arm through jungwoo’s, greeting the freshman politely. ‘should we go now? you wanted to leave’, the girl said.

‘did you give up on waiting for her?’, the barista raised an eyebrow disapprovingly.

‘well, even if she was here, it’s too loud and there’s too many people. we’ve been here for three hours and i haven’t seen her anywhere - maybe she decided not to go at all’, soojin sighed. she didn’t seem terribly upset though, and he understood her completely - wanting to meet someone, then being relieved you didn’t actually have to. in his case, however, life enjoyed torturing him way too much - c’mon, it’s now what? his third time borrowing a lighter from the coat prince?

‘if you say so... you won’t listen to me anyway. well, let’s go then,’ he put his hqd (lucas noticed it was a cherry flavoured one) away in his pocket and smiled, making eye contact with him. ‘see you later,’ jungwoo said, waving goodbye, and yukhei felt his heart melt at that small action.

‘bye...’ - only now did he notice he had finished his cigarette, a sad butt left in his fingers. he threw it away into what seemed like it used to be a ceramic flower pot (it definitely was at one point, judging by the leftover soil at the bottom - or was that just ash? - but there were no signs of a plant seen, so it had become an ashtray/trash can here on the balcony) and started making his way back to the living room.


	6. Chapter 6

he ended up hanging out with some of his basketball teammates for another two hours before johnny approached him: ‘wanna go home?’. they walked ten to his apartment and then went back to their dorm - it was all a blur to lucas. the party was fun and he had a good time overall (he didn’t feel too bad about the conversation they had with jungwoo. at least he got to introduce himself - that’s some progress if you ask wong), but he couldn’t help feeling exhausted.

-

the morning came around too soon, the spring sun shining brightly through the space between their sloppily closed curtains. but yukhei was way too tired to get up and fix it - instead, he stubbornly suffered through it, shifting from time to time, trying to avoid the light getting in his eyes. it’s a sunday, after all - he’s allowed to laze around for as long as he can.

he got woken up by his roommate at twelve though: ‘hey, your phone’s ringing. pretty sure it’s your mum’, suh said, handing over the device that lucas had left at his desk when they got back. it was, indeed, mum.

‘hello?’, he answered, voice still hoarse from sleeping. he could barely open his eyes.

‘what’s taking you so long to reply?’, she sounded annoyed. wong looked at his phone - there were two missed calls. oh. ‘how are you, anyway? studying?’

‘ugh, yeah. yeah, studying’s great’, - that wasn’t completely true. wasn’t completely false either - he was acing the mandarin class he signed up for just to get extra credit.

‘well, that’s good. are you eating well? have you found some nice friends? send me pictures! left his mother like that, barely responds to calls, and no pictures?’, she continued on flooding him with questions. she wasn’t particularly wrong about everything, he did, in fact, text rarely. but it was mainly because he didn’t want to disappoint her. he was struggling - and how could he tell her that? 

he really didn’t want her to worry. it was his decision to move - and now he had to deal with the consequences. when he was back home, he’d share a lot of his problems with his family, but now it felt like there must be a boundary. when the call was finished, he noticed johnny had been looking at him. he seemed very understanding, even sympathetic - he, being a foreign student himself, probably could tell what yukhei’s conversation with mum was about, despite not speaking the language.

‘do you wanna go out with us later?’, suh asked after a while. ‘we’re going to show mark around the city a little bit, so i thought you might wanna go too’. for a second lucas contemplated going. he, yet again, felt like his roommate was doing something for him simply out of pity. but, even if he was, the invitation was still valid, wasn’t it? like... the freshman wasn’t the one asking nosily if he could join, he was actually invited, and the older wouldn’t do it if he didn’t want to see the freshman there, right?.. wong decided he was thinking way too much about this, and agreed, putting on a happy smile.

-

they met up by the main building at around two. mark and jaehyun showed up on time, but they still had to wait for taeyong, so lucas thought it was the perfect opportunity to smoke.

pack, cigarette, lighter... where’s his lighter again? he searched his pocket and finally found one. only when he looked at it did he realise it wasn’t actually his. his lighter was still in the sewer somewhere, and this one he was holding was, in fact, the black puppy sticker lighter jungwoo carried around for his forgetful friend and gave him at the party yesterday.

his eyes went big as he had that realisation, and then he had to explain himself because mark asked what was up. well, at least there’s now a reason to see the coat prince again. how’d he find him though? try to go to the coffeeshop? search on social media? or will life just casually make them meet on accident again?

before he does any of that though, he should probably get a new lighter. that became a goal for the day - buy a nice new lighter for himself. his old one was kinda ugly and random, he bought it at a cornershop back home along with his first pack. not that it particularly mattered if it was cute or not - but, looking at jungwoo’s, he felt that his old one couldn’t even compare. like, if there was a lighter competition, lucas’ old one wouldn’t qualify to participate.

-

the hyungs’ idea of showing them around the city wasn’t quite a conventional guided tourist tour. they went to some of the popular places, of course, but for the most part they explored lesser-known areas - taeyong and jaehyun lead for the most part, since they were from seoul themselves. 

despite feeling weird at first (honestly, when doesn’t this happen to him?), wong eventually relaxed - the guys were very nice and welcoming. they all felt almost like his brothers, even though he barely knew them. they were also patient with his korean, which he appreciated a lot. sometimes, especially with college professors, lucas felt like people got annoyed with him and his language skills very fast, which was terrible because it took away all of the motivation to speak.

they came across multiple souvenir shops and stopped for him to look at the lighters, but there either were none, or they were extremely overpriced. they were kinda nice, but he just wanted a new lighter - not a lifelong investment. so he kinda had to abandon his goal and buy a simple blue-coloured one from a convenience store (the colour was pretty though! it was like a dark teal?) along with a new pack of raison (the old one was finished). 

they ate at a small family-owned restaurant that johnny and his friends went to quite often, and lucas immediately understood why - the value for money was insane. and since the hyungs were regular customers, they were treated extra nicely. yukhei made sure to take pictures for mum - it was, in fact, a perfect opportunity because: a) there were friends; b) there was a lot of food; c) there was no alcohol or cigarettes to be seen. he also took some later while they were walking around and sent them right away to try to compensate for not texting enough in the past weeks.

they parted their ways by the campus, mark inviting him to join his math study group next week. he wrote down all of the guys’ phone numbers and it felt like a real achievement. (before he only had johnny’s and his teammates’, the latter mostly because of the groupchat.) suh said he had to meet up with someone (he figured that would be ten, but ditched that thought as quickly as possible - it was still none of his business). 

so when he got back to the dorm, he had the entire room to himself. to be completely honest, he wished he didn’t because that created space for uninvited thoughts. so, after a shower, he continued torturing the homework that he’d now cursed at several times.

-

the next few days were extremely uneventful compared to the weekend. he finally managed to figure out the coding task and submitted it for review. he also turned in multiple mandarin and infocommunications assignments that he’d been procrastinating on, went to practice as per usual, attended class (he was now sitting next to mark during math, which was great because he had someone to ask when he didn’t understand the words or couldn’t see the board well) and, of course, did a whole bunch of overthinking.

he hadn’t seen jungwoo in a while though, which surprised him because for a moment he thought that life had something planned for them. lucas always looked around when smoking at the regular student spots, but the other boy wasn’t there. wong even went to the coffeeshop in hopes of returning the lighter, but the barista was nowhere to be seen, and when he finally gathered up the courage to ask, it turned out it wasn’t coat prince’s shift.

maybe, he’d be better off searching on social media.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please tell me what you think about this work in the comments! i really wanna know. i feel like i’m taking a bit too long with the development? am i? is the dialogue too awkward? ily


End file.
